Quick Links

The Electronic Big Red Binder. An important resource for GSIs. Reuse and modification of any and all of the materials in these resources is highly encouraged! So is contribution back to the EBRB of your improved materials! There is also an older physical copy (The Big Red Binder), located in the library.

Berkeley TEA Essays - UC Berkeley gives Teaching Effectiveness Awards yearly to GSIs who have implemented new teaching techniques in their classrooms. This page links to essays by the GSIs describing their innovations.

Heavenly Errors - A list of >1700 astronomy misconceptions compiled by Neal F. Comins at the University of Maine.

Teaching Pedagogy Books

Strategies for Astro 101 by Tim Slater and Jeff Adams. (Amazon) A great affordable book on designing Astro 101 (Introductory Astronomy for non-majors) courses. Applied to the course as a whole, but a lot of this book applies to running sections as well.

McKeachie's Teaching Tips by Marilla Svinicki and Wilbert McKeachie. (Amazon) Almost biblical in the pedagogy world, this book covers almost anything you need to know about teaching. If you want to shell out the money, this is the book to get. It covers everything in Slater and Adams and more (no need to buy both…).

How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching by Ambrose et al. (Amazon) An interesting book that covers seven very real problems that you will experience in section. Applied to teaching a course as a whole, many of the book discussions can also be applied to sections.

Useful links for section material

Astronomy in the News - A list of interesting astro-related news articles and websites (usually with more of an emphasis on pop-culture type stuff). It be great if everyone in the class could update this on occasion.